This article was first published in Sada Al Mashrek, a trilingual newspaper published in Montreal, Canada.
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Former Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair has been appointed troubleshooter by the Quartet made of the EU, the US, the UN and Russia to deal with the problem of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. I submit that Mr. Blair has listened long enough to the Jewish Lobby and that it is time he listens to other voices if he wants to avoid repeating the tragedy he helped to create in Iraq.
Given the intractability of the Palestine situation when compared to similar situations the World has seen in the past, Mr. Blair will do well to avoid getting confused while trying to bring peace to the region. There is only one way I can see for Blair to avoid wasting his time and it is this: He must adopt one of two frames of mind at the outset because anything else will send him on the wrong path. Either Mr. Blair begins with the notion that the trouble rests with the Palestinians who do not behave like a normal people under occupation or the notion that the trouble rests with the Israelis who do not behave like a normal people occupying someone else’s territory. And then deal with the guilty party.
If we listen to the noises coming from Israel and the Jewish Lobby, we would believe that the trouble rests with the Palestinians, and that the solution is to social engineer the Palestinian society, political engineer the Palestinian state and institutional engineer the Palestinian civil society, all according to blueprints drafted by Israel and the Jewish Lobby.
On the other hand, if we listen to the Palestinians talk about themselves, we would believe they are a normal people under an occupation that is so primitive and savage, only their civilised roots and their culture have prevented the situation from sliding into the bloodbath that similar situations experienced in other places.
Despite the fact that the Palestinians have been under occupation for three generations, equipped only with their bare hands and their bodies to defend against the brutal daily assaults delivered by the lethal weapons of a merciless occupier, they still manage to maintain a sense of normalcy never seen before from someone under similar circumstances. Therefore, not Israel, not Britain and not the United States have a fraction of the moral authority or a fraction of the credibility that would entitle them to tell the Palestinians, or any Arab for that matter, how to organise their society, their state or their institutions.
So, where do we go from here? Well, it is not the first time that the Jewish Establishment has attempted to engineer the lives of others. History is littered with pogroms and holocausts that resulted from such attempts. Anyone with half a brain will reject off hand the advice given by perennial losers on matters relating to human interaction, and Mr. Blair would do himself and humanity a favour by not according a hint of respect to what Israel or the Jewish Lobby have to say on this subject.
This leaves Tony Blair with the obligation to recognise that the trouble in the Middle East rests with the fact that Israel is being supplied with money, weapons and political support from the United States and Great Britain whose record on matters dealing with human interaction is not a shiny one either. Take away the support for Israel and you take away most of the troubles in the Middle East if not World.
After coming to term with these notions, Mr. Blair should recommend a package deal because the Israeli negotiators will want to have it both ways. They will pretend to negotiate only to see what the other side is prepared to offer in return for what, then ask for what was offered in return for promises they know Israel will never keep. This has been the pattern of their negotiations for ever. They pulled it off when dealing with the naive who trusted them, and they blamed the breakdown in the negotiations on the other side when confronted with a side that will not be conned.
For Mr. Blair to deal effectively with the trouble and bring peace to Palestine and the World, he should recommend the following: 1) Institute an immediate worldwide ban on military co-operation with Israel until a deal has been reached and implemented by both sides. 2) Declare an immediate no-fly zone and no-sail zone to protect the airspace and territorial waters of Palestine, and enforce the ban with the forces of the Quartet. 3) Supply Palestine with defensive weapons capable of countering every land based offensive weapon in Israel’s arsenal. 4) Make political support and financial aid to Israel contingent on the withdrawal from the occupied territories whether this comes before a final deal is reached or after it. 5) Make it a crime against humanity equal to genocide and equally punishable to advocate or to accept the notion that anyone but the entire population of Palestine has the authority to give up on the Palestinian Right of Return. 6) Begin the negotiations between the parties on all other matters.
If the Quartet is serious about bringing peace to Palestine and if Tony Blair is keen about redeeming himself following the damage he heaped on Iraq and Britain, this is what he will do. Anything less is bloody rubbish, mate!